The image is rendering that way no matter what i save it in. THe only conclusion is that its one of my maya settings. I can correct the problem in mental ray render so but i cant figure out how to fix it in maya renderer.

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And after calming me down with some orange slices and some fetal spooning,
E.T. revealed to me his singular purpose.

I think I know why this happens. Maya's renderer does not anti-alias the Z-Depth channel, which is used for the DOF blur. Maybe mental ray anti-aliases it and that's why you get better results. Anyway you could render your images without the DOF but saving the Z-Depth channel in the files. Then do the DOF in post but blur/anti-alias the z-depth a bit before.

The Photoshop approach (not very good imho. if someone knows a better way i'd like to hear)
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open the zDepthTest.iff in photoshop (hopefully you got the maya iff plugin for photoshop. it's free but i can't remember where i found it). in photoshop select Window->Channels. you should see channels RGB, Red, Green, Blue, Alpha 1 and Alpha 2. Alpha 2 is the z-depth channel. click on it and zoom in to one of the spheres edges. it's all jagged and aliased. Do a gaussian blur with a radius of 1,0. Much better. Now zoom out to 100%. Control-click the Alpha 2 channel. The selection marquee looks a bit weird but let's ignore it. Choose Select->Inverse. Click on the RGB channel. Now start blurring with the selection still active and you should see the DOF like effect showing up.

The After Effects approach
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AE can read Maya IFF files but it can't (afaik) access the Alpha 2 channel (the z-depth info). Render the scene to an RLA file which is more suitable. Import the zDepthTest.rla in to AE and make a composition of it. Now apply an Effect->3D Channel->Depth Of Field. Nothing happens until you start tweaking the settings. For example:
- Focal Plane: 0,2 (this is the focus distance. keep withing 0 - 1. 0 = far, 1 = near)
- Maximum Radius: 5 (this is the max blurriness)
- Focal Plane Thickness: 0,1 (like focus region scale in maya. keep within 0-1)
Now you should have the furthest sphere in focus while the other is blurred. Change the focal plane to 0,7 and the foremost sphere should be somewhat in focus.

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